The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness

Schmidt Number: S-2162

On-line since: 4th July, 2002

LECTURE 4.

Berlin, 8th February, 1910.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

To-day we must again refer to the old and important teaching contained
in the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, and, starting from that
we shall carry forward our vision to our own times and the near
future.

The Sermon on the Mount as reported in St. Matthew's Gospel can only
be understood if we grasp the whole spirit of it, in the sense of the
development of all humanity. Let us briefly recapitulate what was put
before us in the last lecture: that the old dim clairvoyance of man
had gradually receded and that the capacities and knowledge of man had
to be more and more limited to the physical plane, and that for this
reason the connection of man with the Spiritual worlds had to be based
on an event on the physical plane. If we recollect all this we shall
understand that the Divine-Spiritual Being whom we have characterised
as the Christ, had to embody Himself in a physical body at the very
time when the perception of man had become limited to the physical
plane. This was done so that the most essential part of the life of
this Divine-Spiritual Being could be described in words and
expressions used on the physical plane. The important point is not so
much that few persons (in comparison to the whole of humanity) were
able to have a bodily perception and observation of Christ Jesus, as
that what is related of Him is a presentation of events on the
physical plane. For it cannot be said that the earlier records of
other Divinities related in words belonging to the physical plane
refer to actual physical events. In everything that we are told of
these, words can only be useful as indications;  for what
occurred with respect to these Divinities can only be understood by
one able to apply the words to the events of higher planes. The life
of Christ Jesus can however, be understood by anyone who can apply
what is told to the events of the physical plane. In reference to this
we can say: The Christ-Being descended into a physical embodiment,
into complete life in a physical body. That had to be because human
capacities at that time were of this nature, and because the human ego
as such had to become conscious of its being if evolution was to go
forward in the right way.

We have seen that the most important of the older intermediaries for
the event of Golgotha was Zarathustra or Zoroaster. In order that he
might become what he was to be, at that time a body had to be
prepared, containing an extract, as it were, of what had been given to
a whole people, a people who had to give to humanity the qualities
which can only be communicated through physical inheritance. We have
seen that the most essential thing in the old Hebrew people was the
duty of developing in successive generations, from father to son, from
son to grandson, and so on, those qualities which had to be inherited
in a continually increased form, till they finally appear in their
highest and best form in the body which was derived by inheritance
from Abraham and Solomon and which was finally occupied by
Zarathustra. We have a great deal more to learn through our studies
before we shall be able to understand the full mission of the old
Hebrew people, in all its details. This necessitates that we should
gradually learn how the qualities needed for the body of Jesus were
more and more ennobled in the course of the descent from generation to
generation. It had to be made as perfect as possible for the
fulfilment of its world-historical mission, for that mission could
only be carried out if all that pertained to the body of the
Solomonian Jesus Being was as perfect as possible in itself as regards
those qualities. Now we know that the four principles of man's nature,
the physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego, are active in
every human body; and that in time to come Spirit-self, Life-Spirit
and Spirit-man, will also be active therein. This must not be taken to
mean that the activity of the astral body will suddenly cease, or that
the later is not being prepared in the earlier. In a certain respect
everything that follows later must be prepared in what went before. Of
course man cannot of his own strength so work upon himself to-day that
the Life-Spirit, for instance, could come to particular expression
within him; but in him work other Divine Spiritual Beings, with an
activity which may be called an activity of the Life Spirit. This
applies also to Spirit-man. Therefore, all the seven principles of the
body, or rather of the human organism of Jesus of Nazareth had to be
ennobled, as regards the qualities which had to be dealt with. This
required very special preparation. This preparation may to-day give us
an inkling of the secrets concealed in the development of humanity and
of the earth.

The germs of the perfection in the body of Jesus of Nazareth had to be
prepared long before. We have seen how during the first period
(extending from Abraham to Solomon or David), the generations were
worked upon just as a man's physical body is worked upon during the
time between his birth and the change of teeth. This work was so
performed by the forces active behind evolution, that at a certain
time there was actually an ancestor of Jesus who already contained
within him, capacities as nearly perfect as possible, and these
re-appeared in the body which became the vehicle of Zarathustra. Thus
in an ancestor of Jesus the foundations of a right development of all
the seven principles of man's nature were present. In other words: If
we trace back the ancestry of Jesus, we must find one ancestor who
possessed the germ of the seven-principled-nature  although not
so perfectly developed as in the body of Jesus of Nazareth  yet
present in rudimentary form. Although not expressed in their external
tradition, the secret doctrine of the ancient Hebrews was cognisant of
this fact. It was aware that once upon a time a man lived of whom it
must be said that the seven principles worked in him in such a way
that they had to be described as quite peculiarly worthy of note! The
Initiates of the old Hebrew secret doctrine actually pointed to an
ancestor of Jesus of Nazareth, knowing that be possessed these seven
human principles in a quite remarkable degree!

They called the ego of this ancestor, Itiel, to indicate
that in him the ego must have possessed that force (for Itiel
signifies something like possessor of force). He must have
possessed that dauntlessness, which would, when carried down through
the generations, become the proper ego-vehicle for the high being who
was to reappear in Jesus of Nazareth. In the same way they called the
astral body of this ancestor Lemuel; that would more or
less describe an astral body so far developed that it does not merely
feel the law, the conformity to law, outside itself, but feels that it
bears the law within it. They called the etheric body of this ancestor
Ben Jage; that would signify an etheric body as far as
possible transmuted within, which having attained a certain
perfection, is able to take habits into itself. The physical body of
this ancestor they called Agur, because the physical
activity, the capacity of this ancestor on the physical plane,
consisted in his having assimilated everything brought over from old
tradition; for Agur signified a collector. All the
ancient conceptions of the world, all the old traditions, were
gathered together in Jesus; and the rudiments of this were already
developed in this ancestor. What worked as Spirit-Man in this
ancestor, was called, (because the Divine-Spiritual Beings gave loving
attention to their work on the rudiments of Spirit-Man,)
Jedidjah, a word signifying something like the
darling of the Gods. What worked in this ancestor as Buddhi or
Life-Spirit, was called Kohelet; for it was said: In
this ancestor there must have worked a Life-Spirit which was able to
act as a teacher to the whole nation, so that its content could be
poured out to them all. And finally, Manas or Spirit-self in
this ancestor was known by the word, Salomo, which
signifies inner balance, for they said: Such a Spirit-self must have
had within it the rudiments of being inwardly whole, of being in a
state of balance within. Thus this ancestor, who is usually known only
by the name of Schelomo, Schleimo, or Solomon, has three principal
names: Jedidjah, Kohelet, Salomo; and four additional names: Agur, Ben
Jage, Lemuel and Itiel, for these names signify the four coverings,
whereas the three first names signify the divine inner part. The
secret doctrine of the old Hebrews had seven names for this person. If
later, people were dissatisfied with Solomon, as was the case even
among certain sects of the Jews themselves (whether rightly or
wrongly cannot be gone into here), this can easily be accounted for.
In Solomon there were great, important rudiments, which were to be
further propagated for a distinct purpose. Now an individual human
being, at a definite stage of his evolution, does not always display
in his outer life the germs of the qualities he is to bequeath to his
descendants; perhaps for the very reason that such great forces are
within him he may even be more subject to failure in this direction.
The lack of morality to be observed in Solomon is not in contradiction
to what the old Hebrew secret doctrine saw in him; on the contrary it
would explain his failings.

Thus the old Jewish secret doctrine looks back to an ancestor of
Jesus, fully conscious of his significance for the whole mission of
their people. All that was but rudimentary in this personality, was
propagated by descent through the generations, and appeared in its
essence when it was required and made use of in the course of the
world's history. This may give us an inkling of the secrets, regulated
by laws, which lie behind the evolution of mankind.

Now if the mission of the old Hebrew people pre-eminently consisted in
the fact that through the physical inheritance certain capacities are,
as it were, instilled into their blood, capacities to be given to all
mankind from the Spiritual world through this people, then, at the
time of the appearance of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth,
humanity ought to have been sufficiently advanced to be able, through
these ennobled capacities, to reascend into the Spiritual world; in
other words it ought to have been able to take up the Christ-Impulse.
I have told you all this to show what preparations were necessary in
order, in the development of physical humanity, to create a sheath
capable of enclosing the Christ-Being.

We can now perhaps feel and realise the intrinsic nature of the
progress in the mission of humanity brought about by the descent of
the Divine mission into physical matter, in the Jewish people. We can
feel how the Divine was carried down into the depths of physical
matter, in order that from this turning-point man might reascend so
much the higher, from the now finer physical into the Spiritual. The
ascent into the Spiritual had to begin from that time. For this
however, an impulse had to be given to mankind which should to some
degree place all that man can desire or expect from evolution into
that deepest centre in man's being which can be designated as the ego.
Through Christ, the impulse was to penetrate to the depths of man's
inner being, out of the body of Christ there spoke such an impulse as
called to the deepest part of man's nature. What was to be made
different by this impulse?

Before this impulse came, all that brought happiness to men, that gave
them bliss and made them feel filled with the Divine, came
to them in a sense from without; they expected it to come thence. If
we do not merely study the history of the world from external
documents but according to what the Spiritual records can give us, we
must say that we look back to ancient times, when man ascended to the
realm of Spiritual beings through arousing in himself,  whether
by normal means or not,  the gift of clairvoyance. But this
vision awoke in a dreamy way; Divine-Spiritual forces worked in it and
the ego was suppressed. Man was more or less outside his ego. Although
in his normal state he was not so conscious of his ego as he became
later, yet he was then in the age when the spirit worked within him
and carried him outside himself, without his ego into the Spiritual
world. He yielded himself completely, either to the external
Divine-Spiritual or to the Divine-Spiritual within his soul. But
during that time of ecstasy, of enchantment, he was not in any sense
conscious of his condition. The time was still to come when man would
realise the relation to the spirit in his own ego, and thence permeate
the deepest core of his being with the consciousness: I belong to a
Divine-Spiritual kingdom. That could only come about through Christ
pouring His own Being into the earth-being, so that the ego could
permeate itself with what was the pattern of Christ. That enabled man
to say: I am now in a Spiritual realm, in the Kingdoms of Heaven
with my ego, whereas man formerly entered the Kingdoms of Heaven
while outside it. The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near, was the
teaching given. For this the minds of men had to be changed, they were
no longer to believe that they could only enter the Spiritual world in
a state of ecstasy, for they would be able to find their relation to
the Kingdoms of Heaven in full ego-consciousness.

We can see that this had to take place, for the old clairvoyant
condition had, in the course of thousands of years, grown worse and
worse. Whereas in olden times man, when in ecstasy ascended to the
good Divine-Spiritual powers, that which still remained of the old
ecstatic condition at the time of the founding of Christianity, had
become such that when man was now outside himself he did not ascend to
the good but to the evil spiritual powers. That is the great
difference between the two states of development. In ancient times
when man dreamily rose into the Spiritual worlds by the suppression of
his ego  mediumistically as we should say to-day
 he was then in the company of the good Spiritual beings. This
had become different at the time when man was to find the way into the
Kingdom of Heaven with his ego; when he now sought or brought about
the states of ecstasy, they are described as being states of
obsession, which brought him into connection with evil
hostile spiritual powers. So at the time of the appearance of Christ
Jesus the following had to be proclaimed as a healing doctrine:
It is not right for you to try without your ego to get into a
condition in which you can become aware of the Spiritual worlds; the
right way now is to seek contact with the Divine-Spiritual worlds in
the deepest core of your being!

This is essentially the teaching contained in the Sermon on the Mount
of St. Matthew's Gospel. We might re-write it thus: In olden times
there was a dream-like clairvoyance. In this man was, in ecstasy,
transported into the Spiritual worlds. At that time he was rich in
Spiritual life; he was no beggar in the spirit as he became when
Christianity was founded. When in olden times he was filled with the
spirit, with what the Greeks called Pneuma, he was
transported into the Spiritual worlds. Christ could not now say:
Blessed or God-filled are those who in their ecstatic states
become rich in the spirit, for these are the very ones who will
certainly be healed! He now had to proclaim: The time has
come when blessed or God-filled are those who have become beggars in
the spirit! That means, those who can no longer rise into
ecstatic dreamy clairvoyant conditions, but who are obliged to seek
the Kingdom of Heaven within, from out of their ego.

Formerly, when man was placed amidst the sorrows and sufferings of
earth, he only had to call forth within him the state in which he
could be transported into the Divine-Spiritual worlds. He was not
obliged to endure suffering, for when it came to him, he could at once
seek the state in which he was filled with the spirit, God-filled, and
in that state  severed from his ego  he could find balm
for the sorrows and sufferings of earth. Christ Jesus had to proclaim
that this time too was now past and over. Those would now be blessed,
or God-filled, who, while they could no longer look outside for help
for their sufferings, might through the strengthening of their own ego
seek within themselves the power to find the Paraclete in their inner
being. Blessed (God-filled) are they who do not banish sorrow by
ecstatically raising themselves to the Divinity, but who endure it,
developing the power of the ego whereby they can find within
themselves the Paraclete, known later as the Holy Ghost who reveals
himself through the Ego. Even Buddha in his time did not
recommend that sorrow should be endured, but that it should be thrown
off, with all the thirst of earth. Even six hundred years before
Christ Jesus, Buddha described sorrow and suffering on earth as the
worst consequences of the longing for existence. Six hundred years
later, in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ in the second Beatitude
proclaimed that sorrow must not be done away with in that way, but
must be endured, that it was a trial through which the Ego might
develop the strength it can find within itself: the inner support of
the Paraclete. This is literally contained in the second sentence of
the Sermon on the Mount, even to the expression; Paraclete. It is only
necessary to read these things in the right way. That is precisely the
task of our age; we must learn, through what is given to us in
Spiritual Science, to read the great scriptures of old aright, through
the teachings of Spiritual Science.

A third point is this. In olden times, when men could permeate
themselves with what came to them in ecstasy and which the Greeks
called Pneuma or Spirit, they were then guided
instinctively in their course. All their impulses, actions, emotions
and desires  in fact, all that dwells in the astral body of man
 was instinctively guided, when man was able to raise himself to
the good Spiritual beings. He had not yet tried from his own ego to
control and purify his inner passions and desires and to bring them
into balance. Now, however, the time had come  and Christ was to
proclaim this  when men having tamed, purified and balanced the
passions, desires and impulses of this astral body  would of
themselves reach the goal for the humanity of to-day, to which we give
expression by pointing to the great progress of evolution. This has
often been presented to us in the following way. Man began his
existence on ancient Saturn; he continued it through the Sun and
Moon-existence, until on the earth the ego was added to him. Only when
he becomes conscious of this ego, when he tames and balances what was
added to him by the astral body on the Moon, can he really attain to
the goal of the earth-mission. Those who are able to control and
balance the desires in their astral body can be blessed (God-filled),
for by this means they will, through themselves, discover the Earth.
Thus the third sentence of the Sermon on the Mount, which as usually
translated contains a meaningless word, tells us the following: Those
who balance their passions desires and emotions (not make
them meek) to them shall be given  or they shall
inherit  the earth.

Thus the three first sentences of the Sermon on the Mount in their
worldwide significance, place before us the following summary.

The first sentence of the Sermon on the Mount refers to the physical
body, and informs us that it was formerly possible, in the olden times
of humanity through a particular training of the physical body to
perceive the Spiritual in clairvoyant dreamy conditions, but the
physical body has now become poor as regards the inner possession of
the spirit.

As regards the etheric body, through which man becomes conscious of
suffering  although he is first aware of it in the astral body
 the indication is given that men must learn to develop in
themselves a force which will enable them to find help for the
suffering which is given them as a trial.

Thirdly, we come on to the astral body, concerning which we are told,
that through the taming and purifying of his impulses and passions man
will find in his inner being the strength which will enable him to
become a real ego, one to whom the earth mission is then allotted as
his portion.

When we now ascend to the Ego, we know that this works in the sentient
soul, intellectual soul and spiritual soul. The ego works in the
sentient soul, that is: it spiritualised it. This enables man to feel
the outpouring of human brotherly love  which becomes universal
through the spreading of Christianity  as righteousness:
hunger and thirst after the all-ruling righteousness. The
sentient soul otherwise feels only in the physical body; it must now,
through Christianity, learn to feel for spiritual things: to hunger
and thirst after righteousness. Those who are able to find their human
centre in the ego, will, as a result of their work on themselves,
satisfy the longing in their sentient soul for an all-ruling earthly
righteousness. Blessed are they who, through the Christ-Impulse,
learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they will find a
strong force in their inner being whereby, because they are working
for the righteousness of the world, they shall find within themselves
the satisfaction of this quality.

We now come to the intellectual soul. We have often emphasised the
fact that whereas in the sentient soul the ego is as yet but dimly
brooding, in the intellectual soul it begins to shine forth, later to
attain full consciousness in the spiritual soul where it first becomes
a pure ego. In the intellectual soul something very singular happens:
the human ego  i.e., that wherein we each resemble all
other men, for each of us bears the ego within him  shines
forth. No matter in what part of the world we meet with our
fellow-man, through the fact that an ego shines out of his
intellectual soul he is a human being like ourselves. Something shines
forth from our intellectual soul, and if we receive it as well as we
can and carry it out into the world, we can enter into the right
relation with our fellow-men. In our intellectual soul we are to
develop something which we must pour forth into our surroundings and
which must flow back to us again. That is why this is the only
occasion in the Sermon on the Mount when the subject of the Beatitude
is like the predicate, Blessed (or God-filled) are they who
develop love; for as they radiate forth love, it will return to them
again. This shows the infinite depths of such a spiritual
document, for it can be understood by the very way in which the
sentences are constructed, it can be understood even down to the
smallest details, if gradually, year after year, one collects all that
Spiritual Science can give for the understanding of man. The
difference between the fifth Beatitude and the others, in all of which
the subject and the predicate are different, cannot in the least be
understood without knowing that the fifth Beatitude points directly to
the intellectual soul, or Mind-soul. We will now ascend to the work of
the ego on the Spiritual or Consciousness soul. Here at last the ego
is pure and unalloyed; only here can it become conscious of itself.
This is beautifully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, in the verse
which expresses that only in the ego can the divine substance in man
come to life. Blessed are they, who are pure in blood or in
heart (which is the expression of the ego), who allow nothing to enter
there but the pure ego-nature; for they will recognise God therein,
they will perceive God!

The Sermon on the Mount now rises to that which refers to the
Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man. Here man can no longer work
through himself alone; at this stage of his evolution be must appeal
to the divine Spiritual worlds, which, through Christ, have been
brought into connection with the earth; he must look up to the renewed
divine spiritual worlds. Whereas in former times strife and disharmony
entered humanity through the ego-nature  as indeed it still does
to-day  peace will be poured out over the earth through the
Christ-Impulse. And those who take up the Christ-Impulse will become
the founders of peace in that part of human nature which in the future
will gradually develop as Spirit-Self; they will thus in a new sense
become the sons of God, in that they will bring down the spirit from
the Spiritual Realms  Blessed are they who bring peace
 or harmony into the world; for they shall thereby be the sons
of God! Thus must they be called, who are really filled inwardly
with a spirit self which is to bring peace and harmony on the earth.

Now, we must clearly understand, that of all that develops on the
earth, some part survives into later ages. This, in a certain respect,
is hostile to what implants itself as a germ in later ages. What the
Christ-Impulse brings, enters into the whole evolution of humanity
 it does not, however, enter all at once, but rather in such a
way that something still remains from the earlier stages of evolution.
It is therefore necessary that those who first understand this
Christ-Impulse should stand firm on the basis thereof, quite permeated
inwardly with its force. If they are inwardly permeated by the force
that proceeds from the seed that has come from the Christ and stand
firm on that foundation, they will then be blessed in a new sense; in
this they develop the force of firmness. Blessed are they who
stand under the new order, who stand under Christ and who suffer
persecution from that which remains over from the old order! And
the last of the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount points straight
to the Christ-Impulse itself, for He says to the Apostles:
Blessed are ye, who are especially called to carry the Name of
Christ out into the world!

Thus we see how the Sermon on the Mount directs Christianity from out
of the great teachings of cosmology and humanity, while everywhere
directing attention to the force within, the centre point of which
must be found in the Ego itself. The time has now come when this must
be understood, and understood in such a way that people must not
believe themselves to be true Christians because they try to find
Christianity in some dogmatic collateral signification or side issue,
but rather those are true Christians who understand the meaning of the
text: Change the disposition of your souls, for the kingdoms of
heaven have descended even into the ego! Those persons can be
called Christians in the true sense who realise that this
is the essential point, and who further understand that this had to be
put at the beginning of our era in a different way from that in which
it must be given out now! It would be a mistaken idea of Christianity
to believe that what was considered Christian in the words spoken two
thousand years ago has not since then undergone further development.
Christianity would stand for nothing but a dead stream of culture. But
it is a living one! It is developing, and will continue to develop!
Just as it is true that Christianity had to start from the time when
man had descended right down to the physical plane, when a Divine
Being became man in a physical human body, so it is also true that at
our present time man must learn to rouse himself to the understanding
of Christianity and of the Christ Being Itself, from a Higher
Spiritual Standpoint!  What does this mean?

Just as it is true that the old dreamy clairvoyant forces had been
lost, so that at the time of Christ those persons who were filled
with God in the old sense could no longer be described as
blessed, but only such as formed the kingdoms of Heaven
within them, it is also true that the ego of man will reascend into
the Spiritual world in full consciousness and will develop ever new
forces and capacities. Just as it is true that the time of the Baptist
was the time when those capacities which led down to the physical
plane had reached a crisis in humanity, it is also true that we have
now again reached an important time. What is called the Dark
Age, which began in the year 3101 B.C. and reached its height at
the time of the Incarnation, came to an end at the close of the 19th
Century. The Kali-Yuga was concluded in 1899! We are now approaching a
time when new forces and capacities will be developed by man and these
will be distinctly apparent in the last half of our present century.
These new forces and capacities must be understood. Particularly those
persons who have studied and understood Anthroposophy must realise
that such an uplifting of humanity towards the Spiritual has again
become possible. For during the important times that will follow after
1930, single individuals will find it possible to develop higher
forces in their nature, whereby what we know as the etheric body will
become visible. A certain number of people will develop etheric
clairvoyant powers.

One of two things will then be possible, either the materialism of our
age will continue, in which case when these forces are manifested men
will fail to understand that they lead into the Spiritual worlds; they
will then be wrongly understood and so be crushed. Should that occur,
would not people, speaking in a materialistic sense at the end of the
year 1940, be justified in saying: Now see what fantastic
prophets those were who spoke at the beginning of the 20th century!
Nothing of what they foretold has been fulfilled. But if the new
capacities have not appeared, that would not contradict what may be
said now, and must indeed be said; it would only prove that people
without the right understanding have choked them in the bud and that
they have missed something which humanity must possess if its further
evolution is not to collapse into dissolution and decay. That is the
great responsibility of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy has sprung from a
knowledge of the necessity for an advanced preparation for something
which will come, but which might be overlooked and suppressed.
Anthroposophy has the task of bringing about an understanding of the
Spiritual forces developing in man. If these forces are suppressed
humanity will sink deeper into the mire of materialism.

On the other hand, Anthroposophy may be successful in spreading
through its teachings an understanding of the fact that man must rise
into the Spiritual worlds; it may succeed in lifting mankind out of
the materialistic frame of mind. For this, however, something must now
come forth from the anthroposophical movement, something that was
prepared centuries ago, but which must now, in our own age, evolve to
a particular and important turning-point.

The centuries that lie behind us were fitted for cultivating to an
increasing extent the materialistic ideas of man. Under this
materialistic influence it was easy to believe that the Christ-Impulse
and the Christ-Being would come into touch with the world by
incarnating once again  or perhaps oftener  in a physical,
material body. Instead of acquiring clear notions of the fact that men
must grow up as regards their capacities so that a great number, and
finally all, might experience the Event of Damascus  that is:
might experience the Christ in the atmosphere around the earth, and
see Him in His etheric body  it was believed that Christ would
descend again in a physical body, for the materialistic satisfaction
of those who refuse to believe in the spirit, and who will not believe
what St. Paul saw in the Event of Damascus: that Christ is in the
Earth-atmosphere and that He is always there! I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world! Those who develop the
methods of clairvoyant vision into the Spiritual world will find what,
could not be found there in the pre-Christian time: the Christ in His
etheric body. That is the important progress in the evolution of
humanity; before the first half of our century has elapsed, those
faculties by means of which the event of Damascus becomes a personal
experience, will develop naturally as it were, and men will see the
Christ in His etheric body. He will not descend into flesh, but man
will ascend when he has acquired understanding of the spirit.

That is the manner of Christ's return in our own age, for in this 20th
century men must work their way up out of the Kali-Yuga into a century
of clairvoyance. They must ascend to Christ by means of the capacities
which they will develop; they must ascend to the Christ where He is
and where He can be seen, at first sight, by those in the vanguard,
those who through the teachings of Anthroposophy can be guided to what
in the course of the next 2,500 years will be experienced to a greater
or less degree by every human soul.

The great event which awaits mankind in the near future is, that those
who raise themselves  with full Ego-consciousness  to the
etheric vision of Christ in His etheric body, will be
God-filled or blessed. For this, however, the
materialistic mind must be thoroughly overcome, and men must acquire
understanding of Spiritual doctrine and Spiritual life.

In bygone centuries it was, comparatively speaking, not harmful for
men continually to return to the materialistic conception of the
so-called return of Christ. Particularly at the small times of
transition, when that which has now reached its climax in a
materialistic sense was being prepared for, as, for instance, in
France in 1137, when a Messiah was expected, and was awaited by many
in wide circles. A Messiah did actually appear then, but he led the
people astray, because the belief in him had arisen through their
materialistic ideas, for it was believed the Messiah would come in the
flesh. Thirty years before, another Messiah appeared in Spain; there,
too, it had been foretold that a Messiah would come in the flesh. At
about the same time another new Messiah appeared in North Africa;
there, too, it had been prophesied that one would come from the East,
and appear in the flesh. Throughout the whole time during which the
materialistic mind was being prepared, in that the highest things were
being grasped by it, there appeared such prophets whose coming was
foretold. Such phenomena are well known to those who understand the
times, and they continued into the 17th century, when the approaching
appearance of a sort of Christ, a Messiah, was proclaimed far and
wide. This again found acceptance by the materialistically religious
minds of men. Based on these prophecies, a false Messiah was thus able
to arise in Smyrna, in 1667, bearing the name of Shabbathoi Zewi. He
wrote letters and epistles at that time from Smyrna, which, although
they contained nothing but false matter, being written in a
materialistic sense, shook the world as greatly as had once the
Epistles of St. Paul. In the 17th century there went forth from Smyrna
the proclamation that in that city there dwelt a Messiah in the flesh!
And Shabbathoi Zewi, the just man of God was so
considered, that it was said the whole world-reckoning would now take
on another form. He will pass through the world with his
faithful disciples and all must believe in him who are willing to see
the truth, who wish to see Christ in the flesh! It was preached
to the people that his birthday must be held as the greatest Festival
on Earth! Whole hosts of people undertook pilgrimages there  not
only from Asia and Africa, but also from Poland, Russia, Spain,
France, and so on; great numbers of persons traveled as pilgrims to
Smyrna to see Shabbathoi Zewi, who was supposed to be Christ in the
flesh, until the thing grew beyond all limits and he was arrested by
order of the Sultan! This, said the people, was but the fulfilment of
the prophesy, for it was foretold he would be in prison for nine
months! The Sultan could think of no other method than to have him
brought forth and stripped, saying: We will see whether thou be
a Messiah, a Christ; I shall have thee shot! And so it was
finally proved that Shabbathoi Zewi was only an ordinary Ba Rabbi
after all!

Such impersonations are the result of the materialistic thinking of
our times, and there will be more of the kind, for the materialistic
mind will make use of men.

What I am now saying will often and often be said during the next few
decades: that the capacities of man will develop up to seeing the
Etheric vision of Christ, in the reality of which they can then
believe, just as firmly as did St. Paul himself! This is the immediate
future of man, and this it is for which Spiritual Science must prepare
him. But on account of the materialistic thoughts of men the time will
also come when strong temptations will arise; false Messiahs will
appear in the flesh. It will then be proved whether Anthroposophists
have rightly understood Anthroposophy. Those who have not will be so
adversely affected by the materialistic mind that they will succumb to
the temptation. Although they believe in Christ they will believe in
an incarnated Christ. But those who have gained understanding of true
Spiritual life will realise that the second Coming of
Christ in our century, that greatest of Events, signifies that
He comes to man in the Spirit, because mankind in the course of its
development will have developed up to the Spiritual, will have evolved
up towards Christ! Therefore in our century, the Sermon on the Mount
undergoes a complete modification. It must be entirely re-modeled, so
to speak. Those persons will be God-filled (or blessed) who, through
having been beggars for the spirit in their past incarnations, have
now advanced so far as to be able to ascend to that part of the
kingdom of Heaven where Christ will appear before their spiritual
sight!

Every single sentence of the Sermon on the Mount in its present form
might be reconstructed in this sense. Christianity will only
re-conquer its ancient documents when they are grasped in a living
sense, when it is realised that they are living, not dead writings.
When the time comes  and that time is here now  when
materialistical research extends to the Gospel and takes away the
tradition of Christ, then, as we have often stated, Spiritual research
will give back the Gospels to mankind! This coincidence will not be
accidental, it will come of necessity. It may be that in our own time
 during which the materialistic mind having gone as far as it
can, will reach a crisis  certain unfortunate persons having,
through their mistaken philosophy been led into curious ideas, may
conclude that effects may be produced without causes, and that there
never was an historical Jesus-Christ. This should be comprehensible to
Anthroposophists. They ought, indeed, to feel a certain pity for those
poor men who, notwithstanding their philosophy, are so entangled in
materialistic thought that they have altogether lost the faculty of
imagining the existence of spirit, and who, consequently, keep flying
in the face of the saying, that there is no effect without a cause.
Christianity as an effect could not have existed without a cause!
Anthroposophy, speaking from spiritual investigation, will tell men of
Christ in the form in which He now lives, if they will but listen with
an understanding mind. The understanding must be sufficiently matured
to recognise definitely that the Christ will reappear, but as a
reality higher than a physical one, a reality to which one can only
look up, after first having acquired a sense and an understanding for
spiritual life.

Inscribe in your hearts that Anthroposophy must be a preparation for
the great epoch of humanity which is immediately ahead of us. Do not
in this look upon it as matter of the first importance whether the
souls now incarnated are still incarnated in physical bodies when
Christ appears in the manner described, or whether they will then have
already passed through the Portal and stand in the life between death
and rebirth. For that which takes place in the 20th century is not of
importance to the physical world alone, but to all the worlds with
which man is connected. Just as those persons who will be in
incarnation between 1930 and 1950 will experience the vision of the
Etheric Christ, so a mighty revolution will also take place in the
world in which man lives between death and rebirth. Just as Christ
after the Mystery of Golgotha descended into the underworld, so will
the effects of the Event which will occur for the inhabitants of the
physical plane, rise into the spiritual plane. Those people who have
not been prepared for this by Spiritual Science will miss the great
and mighty Event, which will also take place in the Spiritual worlds
in which man then lives. Those persons will have to wait for a new
incarnation to experience on earth what makes them capable of
receiving the new Christ-Impulse. For it is on earth that we must
acquire the capacity of grasping all the Christ-Impulses, no matter
how high they may lead us! Not in vain has man been placed in the
physical world; for it is here we must acquire that which leads us to
an understanding of the Christ-Impulse! For all the souls now living,
Anthroposophy is the preparation for the Christ-Event that awaits us
in the near future. This preparation is necessary. Other events will
follow this Christ Event in the course of the development of mankind.
It will therefore be a great omission, if those who have the
opportunity of raising themselves during this century to the
Christ-Event, do not take advantage of it.

Only if we look upon Anthroposophy in this way and inscribe it in our
souls, can we realise what it means to each human soul and what it
ought to become to all humanity.